A poorly imagined fantasy. Ten-year-old Polly and her 7-year-old brother, Sam, nearly drown while trying to retrieve a bottle bobbing temptingly on the ocean waves, but are saved by their surly, no-longer-fun-to-play-with teen-aged brother, Joe. They are disappointed when they can't find the bottle afterwards, and more than a little surprised when they discover it the next morning on Joe's dresser. Inside the bottle they find a note granting them three wishes "of this element," and after a little trial and error, they manage to get the promised fanciful adventure started. The upshot is Joe's disappearance, which no one seems to notice except for Polly and Sam, who have to figure out where he is and rescue him. There is nothing compelling about this story-the characters and dialogue are uninteresting and unconvincing, and the plot seems to have been constructed with convenience rather than logic in mind. For a classic story about wishes, try Edward Eager's Half Magic (Harcourt, 1954), or suggest Franny Billingsley's Well Wished (S & S, 1997) and Bill Brittain's The Wish Giver (HarperCollins, 1983). Carrie Schadle, Beginning with Children School, New York City Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.